~ Flitting from one thought to another * Letting an unleashed mind wander ~

Tag Archives: Sun Cellular

So I’ve been having problems with Sun Cellular lately. And by “lately”, I mean I’ve been having a love-hate relationship with my network provider since they have become my network provider.

I’ve been loving and hating their service for years.

The Problematic First Paragraph

For the nth time now, my Sun Sim card has between blocked from their side. My card works fine–tech support even affirms this. The problem is that even though my card works okay, the server doesn’t seem to recognize it. One moment, everything’s going smoothly, then in an instant, I get this irritating “No Access to Network” notification.

The Supporting Statements

That this problem is unusual. First of all, a quick search through Google will tell you that this “unusual” problem isn’t so unusual. A surprising number of subscribers have experienced and are experiencing this baffling problem.

That it is my phone’s fault. This has got to be the most infuriating may-I-pass-blame move they keep on doing. I have changed numbers because of server-side blocked Sim cards 7 times in less than a year. Seven times! Almost a new Sim card every two months. My whole family uses Sun, and each member has a unit that’s from a different brand. Nokia, Sony Ericsson, HTC, and now, Samsung–my Sim card–only my Sim card–gets blocked regardless of what unit or brand I use.

That Sim cards gets blocked after 4 months of disuse. That’s all well and good, but I never have had the occasion where my monthly load expired on me. As I said, everyone in my immediate family uses Sun, as well as my assorted cousins, and friends; even my coworkers and bosses use Sun. You really think I’d let the convenience of having unlimited text and cumulative free 4 hours of calls expire on me? Most of the time I reload a day or two earlier than my expiry date.

That they don’t know the reason why. Well, no duh, Sherlock.

The Succeeding Argument

Dealing with Sun and their army of technical support personnel is like playing paintball with a hyperactive two-year old fully blindfolded, without any ammunition whatsoever, and with one arm tied behind your back. It’s tiring, it’s pointless, and it doesn’t get you anywhere.
Their phone staff seems to live in different dimensions, because they give answers that are lightyears apart. On a good mood, those answers are quite amusing, actually, but it’s kind of hard to stay on a good mood when you’re expecting an important business call or text and you know it won’t push through.

Getting through their phone support is a quest in itself. Aside from having to press numbers for a ridiculous number of times to get connected with a representative, you’d also have to wait in queue for a good hour and a half. Getting through in an hour or less is considered as being extraordinarily lucky, much like winning the lottery, or inheriting the internet.

But if you’re really lucky, you will get to have an honest conversation with a representative without him or her hanging up on you while you are put on hold.

Even though contacting their phone support is a pain, with the promised supportive action ranging from slow, slower, and $@#!?&, anong petsa na?!, personally, I’ll take their customer support over their in-house support any day.

Why, you may ask?

To put it succinctly: what in-house customer support?

The Inevitable Conclusion

Nothing. There was never any concluding paragraph to this story. Did you really think there ever was?

— The writer has changed Sim cards and mobile phone numbers yet again, for the umpteenth time. She just shuts her eyes and continues to wander through the places where Sun doesn’t shine.